Tag Archives: gbp

Lesson One – don’t gamble with FX rates

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Today I learnt a lesson in FX trading. Don’t try your luck. I’d been holding out to see if the rate will increase over the last few days. It did. But when do you stop holding out? Reading the news suggests one thing, the market does another. I put a nice buy point in at which to book a trade, missed by about 0.001, and then the market has slipped continually since. So I waited and rebooked at a much lower rate, only to miss out by an equally small amount as the GBP USD fell again.

Brilliant.

I ended up simply ringing the broker and booking it, fed up of gambling and guessing. This is a house purchase after all.

Total difference in the rates and the amount I was transferring came to about 1,500 dollars.

Consider this a lesson learnt, Mr FX. Ouch.

 

GBP strong against USD

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As we wait for the villa survey to complete, inspecting for pesky woodworm, rogue pests, and various structural problems, I can’t help notice that the GBP is nice and strong against the USD. Of course, now that I have written this it will plummet.  Once the survey says “yes you have bought a wonderful house that will last for years and has an indestructible self cleaning pool” then I can look forward to booking a trade with the FX Firm close to the 1.62 point. Strangely, the cash will fly over all the way to the USA only to come wheeling back a month later. The middle men won’t complain.

At least the banks with their huge markup (FX spread) won’t get their grubby hands on my hard earned (read remortgaged) money. 1.55 is a good rate? That would lose me over 9,000 USD!